Flatbreads are being produced by millions every day. In most cases, flatbreads are prepared whenever they are needed. But the traditional preparation of homemade fresh flatbreads is till today extremely laborious. In order to prepare fresh dough for flatbreads with the right consistency and flavor, it takes a lot of time, it requires know-how and some experience. Although the existing domestic machines or more industrialized machines for small enterprises, as restaurants, try to simplify this work, the preparation of homemade flatbread is still very laborious. Nowadays machines which are able to produce tortillas at a fully automated process are very costly, big and have to be monitored by humans. Therefore they are not very likely to be installed in any household. These are some reasons why many consumers or small enterprises buy industrially manufactured flatbreads which are often made in relatively large quantities. Those flatbreads which are widely available, suffer in quality to some extent by mass production and the natural decrease in freshness because of shelf time or the use of preservatives.
In the course of mixing the dough flour, water and other ingredients there are many factors that may influence the consistency and texture of the dough. For example the temperature of the water may affect the consistency and its taste. The preparation process is very complicated to achieve by persons without enough experience, know-how or time.
While patents such as the U.S. Pat. No. 5,366,744 from Drummond et al. describe a method for making packaged leavened dough suitable for extended refrigerated storage, this method does not provide an automatic separation of the dough from the tray. The consumer must remove the dough product from the tray at the time of baking and place the dough product into a baking sheet or other appropriate baking utensil.
At present, there are only pre-baked flatbreads available on the market. These are flatbreads which were baked for a part-time of the entire baking process and then packaged into plastic packaging. Before eating, those pre-baked flatbreads are finished and fully baked either in a stove or in a microwave device. However, the taste of such flatbreads never reach the richness and freshness of handmade and instantly made flatbreads.